


the war outside our door keeps raging on (19 minutes later)

by harrytomlinsonwhoops



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Battle of Hogwarts, Drabble, Gen, Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Post-War, Ravenclaw, Slytherin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-08
Updated: 2016-06-08
Packaged: 2018-07-13 01:31:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7132643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/harrytomlinsonwhoops/pseuds/harrytomlinsonwhoops
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>So we know what happened 19 years after the Battle of Hogwarts, but what about 19 <i>minutes</i> later?</p>
            </blockquote>





	the war outside our door keeps raging on (19 minutes later)

So we know what happened 19 years after the Battle of Hogwarts, but what about 19  _minutes_ later?

Who had to find all the bodies? Was it a teacher, who with every step they took found a body of a student they’d once yelled at for not handing the homework up on time? I want to know if it was Madam Pomfrey, a woman who’d dedicated her entire life to helping students. I want to know if she broke down over the scarred body of Lavender Brown, because there was nothing she could do for her, for  _any_  of them. Or was it a group of students? Students who have already seen so much death, and even helped bring about the death of some of the Death Eaters? Did they have to stumble across the bodies of their classmates, their friends, their little brothers and sisters? Did Parvati and Padma Patil see Fred Weasley’s body lying on the floor in the Great Hall, cold and still?

And what about the third year Gryffindor girl who _literally_ tripped over the body of her older brother? How did she feel when she fell to the ground and his skin was still warm? How did she tell her parents when they arrived hours later? And while we’re on that subject- what about the _parents_ of all the students? When did they start arriving at Hogwarts? When did the parents of the little eleven year old girl they’d sent off to school less than a year ago discover that she was dead, had lasted barely five minutes in the fight before a man hiding behind a black hood killed her? What about the parents who had a thirteen year old boy and sent him off to school with warm socks and his favourite chocolate hidden deep in his suitcase, as a surprise? What happened when they arrived and found him in the great hall, just staring off into space? What did they say when they saw that his hands were covered in the blood of his best friend, and what about when they discovered that the last words to leave his mouth were an unforgivable curse directed at the piece of _scum_  who killed the person who meant the most to him?

What about the fifteen year old Slytherin girl who snuck away from the rest of her House because she didn’t want to hide, because she didn’t want to be stuck in the dungeon when she  _knew_  she could help, yet she _still_ had to watch her best friends die? What about when she  _still_ managed to curse a few death eaters, and save some sixteen year old Gryffindors who didn’t even stop say thank you? How does she ever recover? Did she ever stop blaming herself? Does she still wear green when she’s out in public? Does she ever get over the feeling that she’s somehow responsible for all the lives lost, simply because a hat that was placed on her head when she was eleven years and three months old told her who she was destined to become?

What about the Ravenclaws who knew all of this amazing magic, who had studied every day of the year, even weekends, but they _still_ had to watch their housemates be murdered? How did they feel knowing that they couldn’t stop it? How did they feel knowing that while they were learning about how to transfigure matches into needles, how to brew a forgetfulness potion, people outside their walls were dying? Do they ever stop feeling like if they’d just studied a _bit_ harder, or payed more attention in class, that they could have done something different? Do they ever stop blaming themselves for letting the two second year boys fight alongside them? Do they ever stop seeing flashes of green lights every time they shut their eyes?

What about the Hufflepuffs who use to sneak into the kitchens at night for a snack? How did they feel when they found their favourite elf, Hokey, dead in the great hall? How did Flitwick and Slughorn comfort these students who had seen more death and violence than most people do in a lifetime? How did they comfort _themselves_? Did the Hufflepuffs ever stop missing Cedric Diggory? Did they ever stop looking after everyone else and look after themselves? Did they ever sit down and cry, and remember the fallen, and did they ever stop hearing the sounds bodies made when they hit the floor with a dull thud?

What about the handful of Slytherin students who left the dungeon, who went out into the battle, fighting everything they’d been taught from birth? What about the Slytherin students who saw their mothers and fathers wearing black hoods, shooting curses at the kids they’ve been sharing a school with for years now? What about Slytherin students who shot protective spells at the kids _their own parents_  were trying to kill? What did McGonagall say to the shaking first year who couldn’t understand why her twin brother had to die? What did she say when the girl sobbed that it  _should have been her_?

What about the Gryffindors? Did they unanimously decide to stop wearing their House colours because they remembered being covered in a different type of red, a more foreboding type of red? Did they ever reassess their House values, and decide that bravery doesn’t mean charging into a fight simply because you _can_? Did they ever sit down with the Slytherins and apologise? Did they ever apologise to _themselves_ for their own prejudices? Did they spend hours standing in the shower under the hot stream of water, scrubbing and scrubbing? Did they ever stop feeling like they had blood on their hands, on their hearts?

Did Andromeda Tonks arrive after Voldemort had fallen, after Harry had sent word to her that she had lost her daughter, her son-in-law? Did little Teddy Lupin crawl on his father’s body, and did his hair flash between Tonks’ bright pink and Remus’s light brown as he cried? Did Andromeda cry when she saw Bellatrix’s body, as cold in death as she was in life? Did Narcissa apologise then and there? Did they introduce Draco and Teddy then, or later? Did Draco mourn Tonks, the cousin he never knew, and never would?

And what about nineteen _days_  later? What about the half-blood student who was supposed to meet up with her muggle friends in the summer? What do they get told? Do they learn of her bravery, of how even though she was only 12, she fought until the very end? And what about the pureblood Ravenclaw whose parents died in the war? Did they go home to empty houses to match their empty hearts? And what about the kids who were injured protecting their friends from their own  _mothers_? Who do they go home to? How did they deal with their parents being jailed for committing unspeakable crimes? How did they ever go back to school and face their friends? Did they apologise on behalf of their family? Did the sixth year Ravenclaw girl whose mother used the _Cruciatus_ curse on a fourth year Hufflepuff ever stop feeling guilty when she saw the boy in yellow and brown shake whenever he saw her? Did a third year Slytherin student sit her down and tell her that she isn’t to be blamed for her parents’ mistakes?

Did George Weasley drop his Chinese take-out on the ground when he bumped into Padma and Parvati in Diagon Alley, nineteen weeks after he walked out of Hogwarts, after he left half of himself behind? Did Parvati and Padma meet his eyes, or did they walk off quickly, fingers linked, hearts pounding loudly in sync? Did they hold each other tight that night, and did they promise to never let go? Did Dennis Creevey ignore every owl he received, did he snap his wand in half and hide in the Muggle world while he grieved his brother? When he turned seventeen, did he shut himself in his room and try to forget that he had now surpassed his older brother in age? Did he eventually go back to school, back to the place his older brother was killed? Did he find Colin’s camera, and his photographs under his old bunk in Gryffindor, and did he keep them to himself, or did he track the Patil twins down and give Parvati the roll of film that was made up entirely of Lavender?

The next September, when the students all got off the train, were they solemn, and quieter than Hagrid had ever heard them before? Did they all stop in shock at the sight of the Thestrals, did they all finally begin to understand Luna Lovegood a little bit better? Were they surprised when one of the Thestrals walked right up to Draco Malfoy, and licked his hand? Did they begin to forgive him, just a little bit, when he quietly admitted that he’d been able to see them since he was eight years old?

Did they cancel classes on the 2nd of May that year? Did the students spend the day together, holding on to each other as they remembered how to breathe? Or did they spend the day curled up in their separate beds, unable to face the grief they were all feeling?

What happened when the wounds were still fresh? What happened if they never healed? 

 

**Author's Note:**

> i would truly love it if any of you could spare the time to watch this [video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEUumIaxM9M&app=desktop), and then consider sharing it or donating to [this cause](http://prf.donorpages.com/TeamEnzoFundraising/CatherinaLlontop/). a little boy that i know was diagnosed with a life-threatening disease called progeria. this disease causes him to age at rapid rates, and children who suffer from this have a life expectancy of only 15 years. enzo is currently the only child with this disease in the entirety of australia, and he and his family would appreciate any awareness you could raise or any funds you can spare. if you're unable to financially help, please consider even sharing the video so maybe it will reach someone who is able to. again, thank you for reading.
> 
> as usual, find me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/slytherinlarry_) and [tumblr](http://slytherin-larrie.tumblr.com).


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